The End of Time Part 1
voice narrates the opening of the episode: “It is said that in the final days of planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams. But they all forgot them , all except one man.” On Earth, Wilfred Mott, entering a church, has a vision of the Master laughing maniacally. Inside, he notices a stained-glass panel with the image of the TARDIS. A mysterious woman tells him the church was a monastery in the 13th century. It was attacked by a demon which was exorcised by a “sainted physician”. When the woman suggests that the physician is returning, Wilf says it would make his Christmas and turns to find she had vanished. He has another vision of the Master laughing, startling him. In the 43rd century, the Doctor arrives on the Ood Sphere. He is greeted by Ood Sigma, whom he tries to make laugh by locking his TARDIS like an Earth car. The Doctor is distracted by the marvellous city the Ood have built. When Sigma says it took a hundred years, the Doctor remarks it is too soon for them to have the technology. Sigma takes the Doctor to the Ood Elders, who show him visions of the Master returning. The Doctor says that that’s impossible; he saw his wife Lucy shoot him and he burned the corpse himself. The Ood show him an old woman taking the Master’s ring and warn the Doctor of a greater danger returning from the darkness; its return precedes ‘the End of Time itself’. Other visions are a frightened Wilfred and a “King in his Counting House”. The Doctor rushes to Earth in the TARDIS. The scene shifts to Lucy Saxon, locked in Broadfell Prison ever since she murdered her husband. One of her warders is Miss Trefusis, the woman who retrieved the Master’s ring. On Christmas Eve, the prison Governor brings Lucy to a chamber; most of the staff are fanatical disciples of the Master who have worked since his death to bring about his resurrection. With the ring, a biometric imprint taken from Lucy and the sacrifice of the cultists’ lives, the Master is reborn in a swirl of energy. However, Lucy and some other warders have prepared for this. She hurls a potion at the Master. There is an explosion. The Doctor arrives the following day, too late. The prison is obliterated, but the Master had survived. As a result of Lucy’s potion, he has supernatural speed, agility and can generate electrical bolts as weapons, but his life force is in a state of constant depletion. He is unendingly hungry for any food he can find, even resorting to draining the vitality of homeless people on a desolate construction site. The Doctor tracks the Master to a junkyard. The Master taunts him by beating a trashcan to a four-stroke beat, then leads him on a chase through the junkyard. Wilf scours London for the Doctor with other pensioners calling themselves the “Silver Cloak”, and finds him. After retreating to a café with him, the Doctor tells him a prophecy of his death. They notice Donna Noble standing outside, arguing with a police officer over her ticketed car. She’s now engaged to Shaun Temple. Wilf pleads with the Doctor to at least go up to her and say hello to her. The Doctor reminds him that if Donna remembers him for even a second, she will die. The narrator, his face revealed, speaks of the passage of Christmas Eve into Christmas Day; the players are moving into their final positions. Finding the Master again, the Doctor discovers the drumming in his head is not a symptom of insanity, but real. Troops appear, however, sedating and kidnapping the Master and taking him to the mansion of billionaire Joshua Naismith. Back at Wilfred’s house, Donna’s fiancé, Shaun, arrives. As Wilf tries to watch the Queen’s Christmas speech, the mysterious woman interrupts the broadcast, ordering him to take arms; she also advises him not to tell the Doctor of what has happened, if his life is to be saved. Wilf takes his old service revolver from under his bed as the Doctor contacts him by throwing a stone at his window. Wilf shows the Doctor a book by Naismith, and the Doctor realises Donna bought the book as a present because her Time Lord sub-consciousness is reaching out. They immediately set a course for Naismith’s estate, despite Sylvia’s protests. In the TARDIS, Wilf asks the Doctor why he can’t go back to yesterday and catch the Master; the Doctor says he can’t go back in his own timeline. At the mansion, Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, are in possession of the “Immortality Gate”, which can heal injuries and, Naismith hopes, offer life everlasting. He acquired the Gate after Torchwood’s fall. Wanting immortality for his daughter, Naismith enlists the assistance of the Master to mend the malfunctioning Gate. The Doctor and Wilf arrive at the Naismith estate and hide the TARDIS one second out of sync, so the Master can’t get to it. In the basement, they discover two of Naismith’s staff, Addams and Rossiter, are undercover Vinvocci, disguised with shimmers as human; The Doctor can see through the shimmers and deactivates them with his sonic screwdriver. The Vinvocci explain the Immortality Gate is a medical device that heals lifeforms across entire planets, using a genetic template. The Doctor rushes upstairs, but is too late to stop the Master from escaping his captors and jumping into the gate. Every single human on Earth sees the Master in their minds. The Master had modified the Gate to transmit his own genetic template across the entire planet, transforming every human on Earth into a clone of himself, save Wilf behind a radiation shield and Donna, immune due to her half-Time Lord mind. Donna witnesses her mother and her fiancé turn into clones of the Master. She starts to remember everything that was erased from her mind. As the Master steps out of the gateway he tells the Doctor that the human race was always the Doctor’s favourite, but it now exists no more, having been replaced with “the Master Race”. The Narrator announces the Master and his removal of humanity is only a small part of an approaching conflict. He is Lord President Rassilon, addressing the Gallifrey Panopticon, which is packed with Time Lords and Time Ladies. Rassilon announces that “This is the day the Time Lords return. For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of time itself!” Cast *The Doctor- David Tennant *The Master- John Simm *Wilfred Mott- Bernard Cribbins *Donna Noble- Catharine Tate *Sylvia Noble- Jacqueline King *Adamms-Sinead Keenan *Rossiter- Lawry Lewin *The Woman- Claire Bloom *Shaun Temple- Karl Collins *The Narrator/The Time Lord President *Ood Sigma- Paul Kasey